T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author
The Contemporary English Novelist, La Nouvelle Revue française (1 May 1927)
“Our model citizen is a sophisticate who before puberty understands how to produce a baby, but who at the age of thirty will not know how to produce a potato.”
"Think Little".
A Continuous Harmony (1972)
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Wendell Berry189
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Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author
Source: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer
[NewsBank, 3, Sarah Whitman, Age-old feud: In the beginning, Tampa Bay Times, Florida, February 7, 2014]
David Gross (1941) American particle physicist and string theorist
"Waiting for the Revolution" https://www.quantamagazine.org/20130524-waiting-for-the-revolution/, an interview of David Gross by Peter Byrne, Quanta Magazine (2013)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
I
Variant translation: I am a ridiculous man. They call me a madman now. That would be a distinct rise in my social position were it not that they still regard me as being as ridiculous as ever. But that does not make me angry any more. They are all dear to me now even while they laugh at me — yes, even then they are for some reason particularly dear to me. I shouldn't have minded laughing with them — not at myself, of course, but because I love them — had I not felt so sad as I looked at them. I feel sad because they do not know the truth, whereas I know it. Oh, how hard it is to be the only man to know the truth! But they won't understand that. No, they will not understand.
As translated by David Magarshack
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
Context: I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before. But now I do not resent it, they are all dear to me now, even when they laugh at me — and, indeed, it is just then that they are particularly dear to me. I could join in their laughter — not exactly at myself, but through affection for them, if I did not feel so sad as I look at them. Sad because they do not know the truth and I do know it. Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth! But they won't understand that. No, they won't understand it.
Anne Applebaum (1964) journalist
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/z4AdQy3VCmgC?hl=en (October 30, 2012).